Stone That the Builder Refused - Madison Smartt Bell [85]
For the next half-hour she could busy herself with preparations for the departure (though the real packing had been done the night before). Tocquet was supervising Gros-Jean and Bazau as they hitched the cart which would carry their luggage, and in which Zabeth and the two infants would ride. Yes, it did still amuse Elise to install her maid in such a vehicle, while she herself went horseback.
The sun had cleared the rooftops and the day’s first real heat had begun to bear down, when Isabelle appeared to see them off. At the sight of her, twirling a parasol above her small, neat head, Elise felt a deep misgiving. “Come with us,” she murmured as she embraced her friend. “You must come—now—before they burn it down.”
“No, no,” said Isabelle, as she pressed her lightly powdered cheek against Elise’s. “I don’t believe it will come to that—who stands to gain from such destruction? And everything will be put right, as soon as Toussaint has come.”
Elise drew back to her arm’s length, though she still held Isabelle by the shoulders; Isabelle raised her parasol again to shade them both. She was reaching for something in Elise’s expression, but there was no way for her to describe her encounter at the church that morning. It would be taken as a freak of deranged fancy, and what if that were really all it had been? Xavier was studying her too, but perhaps only because it amused him to see them so together; in her current dress Elise might be taken for one or another of Isabelle’s swains.
“Then send the children,” Elise said, turning her head; Robert and Héloïse had come along this morning with their mother. The boy stood flicking his wooden hoop an inch or so this way and that, while his sister gaped at him, stunned by the heat.
Isabelle’s features stiffened slightly. “No,” she said. “I have been too long apart from them—I will not send them from me now.”
“It is your choice,” said Elise, and dropped her hands. “Let it be.” She forced a lightness into her voice. “But you must come to us as soon as you may. Come to us at Ennery. We shall see each other soon.”
“Indeed we shall.” Isabelle leaned in to brush her cheek once more, and then Elise turned toward Tocquet, setting her foot in the palm he offered as a stairstep to the saddle of her mare. He gave her knee a solid slap once she was settled, and Elise felt a flush of gratification; there had been few enough such friendly touches between them these last weeks.
So they set out. Elise rode behind Tocquet; Gros-Jean and Bazau brought up the rear behind the cart. She looked back once as they turned the corner. Isabelle still stood with her brother and the children in the street.
On the Rue Espagnole there was some turmoil. A gang of half-grown boys ran alongside the horses for a block or two, calling to them in voices that did not seem altogether friendly. At the corner of the street leading down to the Place Clugny another knot of men was gathered by a tarpot. The batting of their lances à feu was well coated with the stuff, and one of them thrust his shaft unpleasantly in their direction as they rode by. Elise felt a clutch, remembering the broken broomstick she’d discovered in her way. Her earlier mixture of feeling was entirely gone, and all she wanted now was to be safely out of the town. Would anyone actually block their passage? In the event the gate was open and they went through it without incident, onto the road toward Morne Rouge and Limbé.
When the dust of his sister’s departure had settled on the road, Doctor Hébert bade Isabelle good day and walked across to Government House to see what news might be had there. En route he found various small squads of the Second Demibrigade busy tearing down copies of Napoleon’s proclamation of eternal